1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a face recognition method and apparatus, especially to a face recognition method allowing user intervention.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Face recognition is composed of two parts. The first part is face detection which is to detect the image containing one or more than one human face for a target face. The second part is to match the detected target face against other stored faces by comparing the similarities of the facial features. Face recognition within captured images is useful in many areas. For example, one can associate and organize all the images of the same identity captured at different times, places and by different devices.
However, most face recognition algorithms are error prone and the accuracy is often relatively low. Recognition accuracy is seriously affected by imaging conditions such as lighting condition, perspective and the imaging quality of the image capturing device. Moreover, human faces changes with time and factors such as hairstyle, makeup, skin color and so on can cause the recognition result less accurate. Also, very high computation is needed for face recognition algorithms and most embedded or mobile image capturing devices do not have enough computation power to perform sophisticated face recognition efficiently. Less sophisticated algorithms suitable for embedded or mobile image capturing devices are, however, much less accurate.
Therefore, a face recognition program which can run on embedded or mobile image capturing devices satisfyingly in terms of computation efficiency and recognition accuracy is greatly desired.